“Nevertheless,’ continued Callisto, “he found in entropy or the measure of disorganization for a closed system an adequate metaphor to apply to certain phenomena in his own world. He saw, for example, the younger generation responding to Madison Avenue with the same spleen his own had once reserved for Wall Street: and in American ‘consumerism’ discovered a similar tendency from the least to the most probable, from differentiation to sameness, from ordered individuality to a kind of chaos. He found himself, in short, restating Gibbs’ prediction in social terms, and envisioned a heatdeath for his culture in which ideas, like heat-energy, would no longer be transferred, since each point in it would ultimately have the same quantity of energy; and intellectual motion would, accordingly, cease.”
Entropy, T. Pynchon
NTS is glade to announce “Meditations on Entropy” by X Breidenbach. This ongoing series features large-scale, handcrafted papers that blur the lines between image and object, inviting viewers to contemplate the nature of materiality, temporality, and mortality.
Breidenbach’s papers, which are suspended from the ceiling and seem to float in midair, possess a delicate and fragile quality that speaks to the epheme- ral nature of life itself. Each paper is a testament to the impermanence of all things, reminding us that even the most beautiful and intricate works of art are subject to decay and dissolution. As viewers approach the papers, they are invited to interact with them, to fold and unfold them like maps or letters, explo- ring the different dimensions and perspectives that each piece has to offer. In doing so, they engage with the central themes of the exhibition, which ask us to consider the ways in which we perceive and navigate the world around us.
The concept of the “conditio humana” - the human condition - is also central to this exhibition. By highlighting the fragility and impermanence of existen- ce, Breidenbach’s work invites us to reflect on the temporal aspect, our mortality as objects, and the processual nature of painting. However, even in the face of this impermanence, the papers themselves possess a lightness and resilience that speak to the enduring power of language and the representation of thought.
